The Bruise and the Beach
by LbyBrown
Summary: Murdoc has been in love with 2D for as long as he can remember. After an "incident," he packs up and leaves Murdoc ,apparently, for good, until Mr. Niccals makes a deal with someone who could bring their world crashing down around them on Plastic Beach.
1. Color This Day Red

It's been awhile since me mind belonged to myself, ya know? It's been years. It's probably bloody stupid to talk about it now, since he's already left, but why the hell not, kiddies? I'll find a way to get 'im back around here one way or another. I mean, what's really changed? I'm still drinking. I'm still tryin' to fuck every girl I see. I'm still smoking a carton a day. 'Ow's life different without the dullard? 'Cept my every wakin' moment involves his stupid-arse self? We were never a couple; we were never married -whatever the conspiracy theorists want to tell ya. We never even had sex, drunken or otherwise.

But, kiddies, let me tell you wha' really happened, yeah? No' much, that's what happened. I was a dick to 'im for a decade because it was a hell of a lo' easier than fawnin' over him, knowin' meself. Knowin' the situation. Call me a selfish bastard, but I wasn't exactly prepared to risk everything to have a half-and-half shot with him. I sold my fuckin' soul for the band, I wasn't gonna sacrifice tha'. We were at the top of our game. Not tha' it's changed any, children. Your old Uncle Murdoc is jus' half past give a shite at this point. It would be easier if he weren't such a sexy sod. He doesn' even know that he is, yeah? He's awkward. He doesn' know where to put those arms an' legs of his. He moves slowly. He is languid. He makes everything he does look like he's jus' had his brains fucked straight outta his nose.

Which I would have gladly done for him, given the chance. Have you ever noticed Mr. Pot's love-bite on the Demon Days album cover? Hehehehe. I'll give ya three guesses as to whose doin' tha' was. The world is full o' lightheads, children. They're everywhere. You can't ge' away from 'em. And it was a bunch o' these dolts that screwed with Hewlett's photo-shoot tha' day, so 2D and I were holed up together for the next two hours in a grimy dressing room with the uglies' carpet I can ever remember seeing. It was green. Looked like vomit. Chairs were comfy though.

Luckily, they left a bottle of wine and two glasses. Not that I'm a wine person, but, fuck i', alcohol is alcohol, however you get it.

You can imagine how the next hour went. I drank two, and I still had all me bolts in tight. 2D can't 'old his liquor all that well, yeah? One glass and he was layin' about the room, gigglin' like a little girl. We're sittin' there talkin', throwing punches, kicks, trying to spit on each other. Pickin' on one another, eh, you've probably seen it 'appen before. I was sittin' there, eyein' me Cuban heels, checkin' for scuffs -they are genuine leather, ya know?- before I notice that Stu was lookin' at me. And it wasn't any ordinary look. He 'ad 'is eyebrow raised, and his tongue was on the corner of his mouth. He was laid out over an armchair, 'ands laced together over his stomach.

"Is me face that luscious, Faceache?" I sniggered, I was still slightly amused by this. I swigged the last bit of wine I had. Me legs were spread, meanwhile, my 'eart and stomach had somehow migrated into me throat. It was gettin' a bit hard to breathe. He passed his tongue over his bottom lip before turning them into a small half-smile.

"Yes," he breathed. My mind at that particular moment? 'Oly shit.

He gog up, and sauntered over towards me chair. I shifted in it, the first and last time 2-Dent has ever unnerved me tha' way. He was standin' over me. Tiny, knowin' grin on his face.

"Stu, what the fuck-," I was saying, heart pounding in me chest, but that was before he had his hand on it, leaned down, pinning me.

"Don' as' questions, Mudz," he whispered, climbin' up onto the chair, swingin' a leg over me, on his knees. His shit was 'ard on mine. Fuck. The wine-glass I had was dropped and shattered. My hands were gripping the arms of the chair. His were grippin' my shoulders. He leans down, and he kisses me. I am frozen, he is not. That kiss was gentle, soft, virgin li'e. And then 'e bit my lip. Hard. And, sweet Satan, the pain was exquisi'. The tears welled in my eyes, but I was stiffening, grinding against him, voluptuous, delicious friction. And that was i' for me. I pulled him to me by hair, and I smashed my lips on his, six-inch-tongue down his throat, playing with his. I'm pullin' at his shirt buttons with the other, eyes closed. Oh, Prince below, this was good. This was amazin'. I didn't wan' this to stop. I was beggin' in me head. 'E's whimperin' and moanin' while we sit there toying with each other's tongues. This was too fuckin' incredible. Bu' I am Murdoc Niccals, after all, and it didn't take lon' for an idea to pop into my head.

"Moan my name," I commanded, pulling away. There was an evil little smile playing on my lips. But the idiot was shakin' like a leaf. Damn incoherent. But if they don' listen, make 'em. Which is exactly what I did, trailin' the tip of tongue from the corner of his mouth down warm skin to a spot on his neck, he's straining against me. I started kissing at it, sucking on it, lightly biting it with needle-teeth. I've got him pulled down on top of me, his buttons are undone, his chest is bare now.

"Oh, God, Murdoc, don't stop, don't stop, pleeeeease don't stoooop," He pleaded with me, his head thrown back, and his eyes squeezed shut. This clearly wasn't enough, so I bucked my hips underneath him.

"OH GOD MUDZ YEEEEES."

Did the trick, don't you think?

I kissed down his chest, licking, sucking, biting at him, leaving a soldier-line of hickeys across him. He was moanin'. I was chucklin'. Hips are everywhere. My cape is on the floor. His arm is across my back, grabbing. Kiddies, it was mad.

But you remember those cretins I mentioned before? This is the point in the story where they decide to get their act together. Stu's still moanin' and apparently never heard that doorknob bein' fumbled with, but I did.

And so it was that someone was on the other side of the door, seconds away from opening the door to discover..._this_. My eyes popped out of me 'ead, and with one quick hand, I pushed the dullard off me.

"AAAAH," 2D yelped as 'e landed with a fantastic THUD! onto the floor. Faceache was flat on his back for a moment before his face reddened, he pulled back his leg and kicked the livin' piss out of my right shin. I was doubled over, clutching at it, massaging the fuck out of it, tryin' to counter the burnin' hurt blazin' up and down me leg.

"YOU FUCKIN' IDIOT, WHAT THE SODDIN' FUCK WAS THA' FOR?"

"FOR FUCKIN' PUSHIN' M-"

And then that wretched doorknob had to turn. We both cut off our words, panic and fear risin' in out throats. I held me breath and waited.

"Toochi-kun! Murdoc-san, they are, uh, ready for-" Noodle stopped squarely in her tracks. She saw me hair. She saw my cape puddled up on the floor beneath me feet. She saw 2D hitched up on his elbows, , his shirt open, his chest displayin' five or six saliva-slick bruises. She saw the enormous, bleeding one the right side of his neck.

"Oh."

And then she spun around, and she was gone. I 'ave to hand it to her, she never told anyone. The door clicked shut behind her. We cleaned up without sayin' a word. Me and Stu couldn't loo' at one another for the rest of day, but that day was forever immortalized on the album, that red-mottled mouth-shaped ring on Stuart's neck.

The rest of the world is goin' to sleep tonight, but, kiddies, I am not. I'll be sittin' right 'ere, rum in 'and, wonderin' if I'm on his mind too.


	2. Stay

I burned Stuart with a cigarette on Saturday, October 28th, 2006.

He had decided to leave, yeah? I saw i' comin' from miles away. The stupid sod had suspected me ever since "El Mañana." Russel go' onboard with that idear, and I 'ad been livin' under constant scrutiny for 'alf a year. Eventually, the drummer packed i' up an' left for Brooklyn in August of that year. I knew it was only a matter of time before the dullard followed suit.

And, sweet Satan, 'ow wrong I wanted to be.

Bu', kiddies, I was not.

He tol' me over breakfast a week before that he was finished with the band. An' for 'im it was that simple. He brough' the shifters in, and they took his seven trunks filled to the brim with zombie posters, prints of Jane Birkin, 'is dozens and dozens of useless knick-knacks that 'e buys jus' because he can. 'Is fuckin' pinecone collection. The furniture. The bed tha' should have been ours. An' when they were done, it was just a massive, red-and-black block. Voided. 'E'd been sleepin' on the couch for three nights before he had taken the lift down to get his clothes. I 'ad followed him, fags in hand.

Hehehe.

We didn't even speak, yeah? We just stood there, our weight dropping with the elevator, both shir'less, because much like Hell, Kong Studios is never cold. When the old piece of shite sceeched to a stop tha' nearly made my ears bleed, not ten seconds later, 2D was out of it completely, before the slidin' doors had even opened all the way.

'E flung open the closet doors, a determined, single-minded look contorted his face. He pulled out an ugly-arse houndstooth suitcase, got on his knees, unzipped it and began carefully folding whatever he pulled out the closet next -his t-shirts, jeans, damn, even 'is boxers. An' then it hit me, like being kicked with steel-toed boots, that he really was walkin' out. He was leavin'. He was about to be gone. I watched 'im lay aside a shirt, a white one wth tiny blue pinstripes, and a black hoodie. My stomach lurched.

Ya know, this fuckin' arsehole was mutterin' to 'imself the whole time abou' his case. As if it even soddin' mattered. He was tryin' not to look at me, because he knew I was watchin' 'im. 'E knew. An' this was his way of distractin' hisself. To this very day, I still bloody wonder if he had seen the lump in my throat. As if it had grown and tightened underneath me skin. I needed to get rid of tension. Now. It was suffocatin' me. Shakin', sittin' up, me legs crossed beneath me, I pulled one soft, white cylinder out, having to pierce it with me nails to keep it from slippin' out of my hands, and now I was fumblin' with the lighter, pressin' at i', prayin' that 2D couldn't see, didn't hear, and tha' he would quite foldin' those fuckin' clothes as if everythin' was normal.

If I didn't get a fuckin' drag right then, I would be tossin' me cookies all over tha' lovely-arse floor. The damn thing finally took, and I pulled it up to my mouth takin' one lon' drag off it, feelin' me stomach slide back down my throat, feelin' my mind calm. But that twisted, jumbled, _emptiness_was still there. Dread tinged every thought I had, and some voice 'round about that place I call my sold soul told me it was gonna take a lo' more than a Marlborough to make that go away.

_ZIP._

Faceache was doin' up his bag. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. I 'ad to buy time. I 'ad to do it somehow, I 'ad to fuckin' make 'im stay.

"Forgettin' somethin', dullard?" I was mockin' 'im, me arms folded over my chest, lookin' down at the pile of clothes I knew good an' well he intended to wear.

"I 'aven't go' time for yer shite, Mudz," came the breezy reply. He was on a knee before pushing himself up to standing, with the bag in-tow. I was pissed, children. Calm, cool, collected? 2D? I' was fuckin' laughable. And I wanted to laugh at it. But I didn't. Instead, I stood up with him, and blocked his way to the door, anger threatening to well a' any momen'.

He sighed. The stupid Tusspot sighed at me, and that too with his head turned to look out at the elevata' a few feet behind me.

"What the fuck are you doing? Why the fuck are you leavin', dullard?" I wanted the answers. They were all I 'ad lef' at this point.

"Yew," he breathed it out, he was impatient. Tappin' 'is feet. Tuggin' at his hair. Fidgetin' like a five-year-old.

"What the fuck have I done to you? 'Dent, we have _fuckin' everythin'. I fuckin' gave all of us EVERYTHING_," my voice was pumpin'. Grating. You could hear the metal in it. I was clenching my hands into fists.

"Wot 'ave yew done t' me? Mudz, yew fucked up me life, dat's wot yew di'. I wa'nt even twenty-years-old when ya knocked me inta dat coma. I los' a year o' my life tha' way, alon' wi' me teeth. An' then ya did i' again, bu' tha' time ya jus' made me da frontman o' yer fuckin' band so that _yew_coul' ha' wot _yew_ wanted. When me dad died, an' we was on tour, I didn' go to 'is fuckin' funeral_because yew tol' me t' stay_. Ya _slept_ wit' me girlfriens'. An yew know wha' else? I too' bein' punched an' hit an' kicked an' bit an' thrown aroun' an' bein' your fuckin' punchin' bag fer a decade_all because I gave a fuck abou' yew_," he said all of this near-silently. An' somewhere, deep inside my conscience,the guilt rose in me. I wasn't gonna admit it though. Not to 'im.

But I ended up doing it anyway.

"Please. Don't leave me. Please, Stu," I whispered, rolling my eyes back into my head, the apology was in me voice. I dropped my hands, covered in blood, to my sides, my shoulders saggin'. It was pathetic to look a'.

'E looked up a' me, the first time in weeks,and he smiled.

"Mistuh Niccals, dere ain't a fing in the worl' yew coul' do t' make me stay."

Wha' I remember happening after tha' is vague. I went numb. Like I wasn't in the room. Like I was nowhere. Like I was watchin' all o' this 'appenin' on television, yeah? The way i' felt, I wasn't a part of my body anymore. I know tha' Stuart tried to walk by me with his suitcase, I know tha' I grabbed his right arm. I know I held out his 'and, and I know that he tried to figh' it. I know that I pulled the chewed-on cigarette out of my mouth, and shoved the tip of it down on the center of 'is wrist, and watched a tiny circle of his flesh, bubble, bleed, and then shrink off him, slowly. I know I heard him scream, and that it didn't stop me from i'. I did let go of 'im. I simply let his wrist fall when I dropped my arms.

I felt nothin'.

He must've punched me, because what I remember next is falling to the floor, hitting a bone in my back, and tasting the sick, metallic taste of blood welling from the inside of my mouth. And I saw Stu, hunched over me, his face brick-red, livid, his eyes on fire. Heaving air into 'is lungs.

I started laughin' in his face, blood and spit flyin' everywhere. I was in hysterics. I couldn't control meself. It was all _so fuckin' funny_. Stu, Stu was about to _soddin' leave_. I couldn't get over tha'. It was outrageous. Tears started seepin' out of me eyes.

2D, for his part was taken aback. He pulled his head back, straightening up as 'e did i', 'is thick eyebrows knitted on his face.

"Ya know what's funny, Stuart? Is tha' you're gonna have to carry me with you every single day for the res' of your life. Everytime you look in the mirra', you're gonna see eyes that look the way they do because of me. Teeth tha' aren't in ya mouth because o' me. An' you know wha' else? This day, this moment righ' here, it's in your fuckin' skin now. You won' be needin' an obec' to loo' at that. And every time you do, you're gonna thin' of me," I couldn't stop gigglin', my teeth ough' to have been crimson. I couldn't stop the water drippin down me face, "So go a'ead an' leave. Leave _NOW, DAMN IT, LEAVE_."

I couldn't see 'is face at tha' moment, me eyes were so ou' of focus. but I could 'is shape towerin' above me. I could 'ear his bag's plastic wheels, and the ring they sounded when they hit the metal pipe tha' separated the lif' from the basement is somethin' I can still brin' back.

I'm lyin' there, alone now, 'alf cryin', 'alf laughin', and all I can remember thinkin' about was how much blood I was gonna be able to swallow.


	3. The Whale Interlude

The fla' stays empty mos' o' da time. I don' like stayin' in it much. I still haven' unpacked, even four years later so everythin' I do use is always scattered on da floor, bu' all the shite I used t' collec' is still neat an' tidy in the trunks, lookin' like the day I lef'. I can' bring meself to do i'. I spen' most days an' nights ou', some on the streets, some a' the pubs aroun' here. Some nigh's I go home wi' the women a' the pubs. Others? I don' really see why they matter.

Tha' scar he gave me lasted. A' this momen', i's still on me skin, shriveled and pink. Go' a ring o' red abou' it too. An' every time I loo' a' it, I fink abou' 'im. Somefink abou' 'im every time, 'is 'air, 'is eyes, 'is laugh. The way 'e used to loo' a' me when no one else was watchin'. I don' figure 'e's ever tol' anyone abou' tha'. 'E wouldn't. Bu' I will.

Once upo' a time, Murdoc Niccals woul' loo' at me li' I was the center o' 'is universe. I knew he wan'ed me. Didn' know 'e felt anythin' real, no, no' back then. I'm no' brigh' but I ain't stupid, an' maybe the fac' tha' I chose to be blin' is wha' makes me the fool. 'E never did leave me. No' once. He lef' them -Noodz and Russ- bu' no' me. I though' he wan'ed sex. Tha' 'e was angry 'coz I never pu' ou' for 'im, an' tha' was why 'e made me 'is bitch. I though' the reason 'e never go' ri' o' me was 'coz I always gave in. The day tha' I stopped is the day I realized that he wasn' someone who coul' loo' at ya li' you meant everythin' an' lie.

Bu' I lef' 'im anyway. An' I wish to God tha' I had not.


	4. Bitten

Who am I? What am I? I am evil on Earth.

Neither am I human, nor am I beast.

I was born of a mother who brought me forth without a father to yield. Indeed, my mother was the first spiteful thought to course through man's mind, and the midwife was his malicious words. I was nurtured upon his deeds, and the acts of all those to succeed him. His cruelty, his wickedness are my bread and water, and I shall survive as long as humans are weak, selfish creatures.

This is to say, until the end of time.

However, my speech is directed upon a group who are unlike the masses. They are four in number, five if you consider the one that has no life of its own. They are bonded together by a pact with another entity of evil that is foreign to me, and the sexual attraction between two of them: The thinner males; the immortal one sought me out to recover the simpleminded one.

To speak of the immortal one, he is strange. He has no empathy, no capacity for it. And unlike the majority of humans, he makes no effort to hide this. His is a life of greed, lust, pride, and gluttony, characteristics I greatly respect. His appearance reflects this peculiarity. However, he is wholly willing to sacrifice himself for the sake of the three living, particularly the blue-haired man-child. It is a flaw that he desperately attempts to conceal, but he cannot.

Upon arriving at the powder-pinkish island in the Pacific Ocean, the immortal one summoned me into one of the bedrooms of the structure he had created upon that behemoth body of filth, and he asked me to bring the boy back to the island, of course, being as kind as I am, I obliged his request.

He asked my price.

I wanted his soul.

He was free about giving it, again unusually easy, even for someone who stays perpetually intoxicated, letting aloud a gasp of laughter that reverberated against the thick, plated-iron walls. He replied that I had it from the beginning, but if I needed a verbal declaration of it, I had it now.

That was enough for me.

The boy stands in front of the window and his soot-black eyes are wide on the city living below him, pulsing, breathing, existing without him. He has no role in that farce, but he does not seem to be aware of it. He's also oblivious to my gaze upon him, he does not know that I can see through solid concrete.

He has not shaved.

It is twilight and the dimming sun casts orange light on his perpetually unlined face and his hair is shaded an odd violet. The flat around him seems oddly barren, even clothes littering the floor, a pallet of made-up sheet and blankets sprawling through the center of the room, seven trunks neatly stacked up in the lower-right corner of the room, and the one poster emblazoned with emThe Panic in Needle Park/em and Al Pacino's visage.

This, this would be far less of a problem than I had originally thought.

It is undemanding to take down the guileless, and for that, this is something of a bore, but the return is worthy: To have a human soul incapable of remorse or guilt but for three, no, truthfully, one other.

My mosquito nose touches the cold metal plate of the mail-slot, but I remain undeterred. Cold has never been, shall we say, a matter of issue for me. My mission is clear.

I feed the gas tubes connected to a tube of halothane through the mail slot. If I could smile, I would be now, but it is something that I remain unable to do. It is impossible for me to show delight or satisfaction even in wrongdoing; my purpose on this Earth is to create a race of men who will one day slaughter their fathers, their brothers, their wives, and their children without mercy in their eyes, even as the blood splatters their faces.

But, today is not that day.

I reach a hand over to the handle of the tube, easily loosening it and gently rotating it three times, releasing a spewing thicket of colorless, odorless fumes within the room. The idiot does not even notice the creak of the knob.

The gas hits his nostrils just in time for him to take in a gasp of breath.

One.  
Two.  
Three.  
Four.  
Five.

**_CRACK._**

He leans forward, hat askew, passed out against the window, shattering the glass with the weight of his skull.

The pride wells in me as it does every time. It is completed.


End file.
